The backlash is starting to show. The most recent change in Apple's iPhone developer agreement isn't going down well. The change is clearly aimed at increasing lock-in, and seems to have little to nothing to do with anything else. While individual developers are hit hard, Adobe as a whole has been hit pretty hard too, giving rise to sentiments on the web that Adobe should abandon Mac development. I have the sneaking suspicion this is exactly what Apple is aiming for.

If Apple is really pushing to chuck Adobe by the wayside, it's going to have to create some alternative for developers and designers.

Maybe somewhere in Cupertino there is an iFlash being developed?

Maybe Gnash is about to receive a huge code dump...?

</rampant half-serious speculation>

In all seriousness, why would Apple advocate HTML 5 as a replacement for Flash when HTML 5 is an open standard? Where's the lock in there? I agree with you, Thom, that Apple's other moves are pro-lock in, so why are they taking this one step back? (Or one step forward, as it were.)